Moneyball

I was enjoying the "World's Smallest Ice Cream Cone" from The Fountain on Locust yesterday with my class and struck up a conversation with one of the students who is on the club baseball team at the university about how I think professional baseball is one of the most boring things you can watch. I rank it up there with golf (and hell, most sports to be honest). I enjoy going to games but it's more for the atmosphere, the community, the big beers, dizzy bat races, and kiss cam (even though it's discriminatory). I don't go to focus on the game itself. The student was stupified that I so bluntly could take or leave the game but it's true. So did I watch the Cardinals last night in their victory? Nope. Did I care if the Braves made it? Nope. Sure, I'm excited for the city of STL that the Cardinals ended up performing so well near the end but at the end of the day, not impacted.

With all that being said, I did venture over to the Moolah last night to see Brad Pitt's new movie, Moneyball, based on the true story of former player Billy Beane (played by Pitt) who is the General Manager for the Oakland A's and with the help of a recent college grad from Yale with a background in Economics (played by Jonah Hill), ends up taking a team with no money on a 20 game winning streak and changing the way the game of baseball is managed. My interest in the film stemmed from the great reviews it was receiving and the fact that I thought it could end up on EW's "Must See" list before the Academy Awards. Not so much that it was about baseball.

However, I must say the film WAS. FREAKING. GOOD. And that's saying a lot coming from a guy who doesn't give a rats arse about baseball. Like real good. Pitt did an incredible job as Beane, Jonah Hill was witty and comical, Philip Seymour Hoffman was subtle but outstanding per usual. Overall, a film I definitely recommend seeing. For baseball aficionados and those like me.

Cheers.